Papercraft Kickstarter aims to teach kids to code

STEM ambassador Dan Bridge has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise £35,000 to teach children how to code through papercraft.

Called Craft Computer Club, the project includes a craft computer, that can be put together with card, scissors and glue, with the aim of educating kids on the principles behind computing and the important parts that make them function.

Bridge is also putting together a book to teach children aged five-to-11 the fundamentals of programming, including picture guides and games covering topics such as Raspberry Pi, and how games like Angry Birds are made.

Bridge’s newly founded educational developer InPractice is also looking to fund an online club with videos on algorithms, programming and debugging, and will include introductions to languages such as Scratch, Python and HTML5.

On the project’s Kickstarter page, Bridge said creating papercraft activities meant parents could work with their children to educate them on how to code.

"Writing an app would have been really easy. The problem was more for me as a parent, I don’t know about you but there’s plenty of things my kids love on the screen and I wanted to make something that we could do together, round the table," he said.

"And I also wanted to pass on my computing experience as it’s generally really helpful for problem solving – whether you want to write code or not. I sat down at my kitchen table to work out how to do that and I realised it was covered with craft materials – paper, glue, string, glitter, crayons etc. It seemed obvious then to use the tools my children use all the time, ones that they’re confident with and ones that don’t need a computer or tablet."

At the time of writing, Craft Computer Club has raised £5,129 from 134 backers, with 19 days left to go to reach its £35,000 target.

Visit the Kickstarter page for more information.